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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Court of the Archon

So rumors have been posted with screenshots of the two new Finecast models for Court of the Archon.  The Ur-ghul and Medusae.  The ur-ghul looks like a skinned DE man.  Kindy freaky looking.  The medusae looks like a headcrab with tentacles, which is what it is supposed to look like.

I really like the medusae of all 4 of the options in the court.  D6 strength and D6 ap flamer template is hawt.  As is now though, you can only take 2 and then have to take 1 of the each for the other three options.  Really lame.  Takes the potential right out of that Codex entry.  The T5 guy? Why bother, his toughness never matters! Now if you could pick and choose, that would add so much flavor and potential for a really awesome unit.  Buuuuuut Gw continues to put together some really awesome new books but then have an entry in it like that to just make you go, "Wha?!".  Pyrovore comes to mind.

I'm looking forward to the last few pieces of the Dark Eldar line to come out. The special characters and especially the Bomber!

Friday, July 22, 2011

DE vs Grey Knights

So the Grey Kniggets have been out for a while. I believe I know how they tick now.  So I am going to go over some things to look out for when facing up against the elite of the elite.

Overall the Grey Knights are a very tough force. They may not have a high model count if going the paladin route but they can withstand punishment.  If they opt for an all purifier list then it is still 40+ marines.  I will just go over the various units in the book and talk about what I think of them in relation to Dark Eldar.

HQ's:
Draigo - Eh, honestly he is whatever to me.  Pretty standard 250+ space marine HQ.  You shouldn't treat him any different than you would say Lysander.  They pretty much have the same stats and so die the same.  He buffs the army pretty good but there is nothing to change what he has already done for his army.

Librarian - Now these are how Librarian's should be! Buying what powers you want for 5pts a piece?! Sweet!  Anyways, these guys are a real good buffing units and/or for the squad they are with.  The powers we need to watch out for against them are Sanctuary and Shrouding.  Weather you are assault based or shooty, one of these two powers is going to play havoc with you.  Sanctuary will give anyone trying to assault the squads around the libby pause for sure.  Don't let that be a deterrant though.  That would be playing to thier advantage.  They would rather you not assault them and be content to sit and shoot you to death.  It also depends on the situation.  If they are not sitting on an objective, you don't nessecarily need to assault that squad.  Kill points however, that squad will have 2-3 kill points in it so it's worth taking out.  I think being hyper aggressive in positioning is important here.  Get as close as possible before launching the assault, don't try and long shot an assault because you will pay for it.  Shrouding plus bolstered ruins anyone?  Yea that's going to be annoying to try and shoot them down.  However, the good news is with that mighty 2++ they can still roll ones....  So volume of fire is going to start playing a big role in this kind of situation.  I now play with 4 venoms in my lists for this very reason(helps against other armies too).

Bro-captains, Champs and Grand masters - Really the only thing to look out for against these guys is the Heroic Sacrifice ability.  Don't send an expensive HQ or other model to kill this guy, he might get you too!

Inquisitors - Whatever, these guys are chumps.  They can bring some cool wargear and change FOC but I would not go out of my way to try and deal with them. 

Elites:
Purifiers - These are probably going to be the mainstay of most non-paladin armies you might face.  They are pretty dang good for what you pay for.  They might even be troops to boot if they pay the Crowe tax.  So they can get up to 4 Psycannons in the squad and can equip I6 halberds.  Guess what? They still die like marines.  The only thing that causes me to think for more than a second about weather to assault them or not is Cleansing Flame.  With the new FAQ out, wyches get our 4++ against it. Couple that with Feel No Pain and you won't lose as many as before the FAQ.  So I have no problem assaulting in on these guys anymore.

Techmarine - The now infamous grenade dispenser.  The only thing I despise in this codex is Pychotroke grenades.  Rad nades are fine and so are blind.  But man, I win nades?  They should be more expensive honestly.  They are a joke for only power weapon cost.  Most of the time I see this guy carrying a warding staff for the 2++.  They still only have one wound, easily delt with.

Paladins - These guys can take a beating!  2 wounds, 2+ save, standard 5++(4++ in combat).  Very respectable. Access to an apothecary as well.  Not to shabby.  Normal small arms fire won't put a very big dent in them.  You know what does though? Lances.  Lances smoke paladins pretty good.  Shrouding will make this a bit a pain but is still your best ranged answer to paladins.  In combat they can weather a fierce storm.  20 paladins with libby and Draigo can hold off 40+ wyches and two HQ's pretty handily.  I think the key here is to wear them down with lances and small arms before engaging to get the numbers down and overwhelm them.

Assassins - I love these guys.  Just fight them like normal and they die, nothing special you have to do really.  Vindy will be most common, but he can roll 1's and 2's just like everything else.  The calidus you have to wait till she comes out to deal with.  Her template can kill swaths or our infantry.  Having leadership 9 helps causing then she only kills on 5's but still, it's a template so be careful of being clumped up.  Once she is out though, she can be dealt with standardly though.

Troops:
Grey Knight Squad - All force weapons and a couple of psycannons. Just regular marines to me.  They die to shooting and assaulting like regular dudemans. 

Grey Knight Terminators - Not as dangerous as paladins. Die just like regular termies.  They are kind of a cross between C:SM shooty termies and assault termies.  so they have a 4++ in combat, unless halbreds, and can have psycannons but not as many as in a paladin squad.

I would comment on the inquistorial squads but I don't have alot of experience on them yet.  From what I've seen though they are just guardsmen with fancy wargear is all.  They are still BS3 and T3, and crappy armor.  The only thing to watch out for really is the death cult assassins and crusaders.  These guys don't have grenades so keep that in mind if they are on the board.

Fast Attack:
Stormraven - Pretty Standard. The only thing different is the missles and those mean nothing against us.

Interceptors - They can teleport once per game, so keep in mind for objective grabbing.  Also, they can cary incenerators and are jump infantry.

Heavy:
Dreadknight - The only scary thing about this guy is the heavy incenerator.  Other than that he's a monsterous creature so......go posion! lol

Purgation Squad - For a solid 100pts these guys can pack 4 incenerators!!! Yikes!  I treat them the same as when I see burna boys on the table.  Kill them asap!!!!

Dreads - Strength 8 auto cannons. These are what you will see most often. They need to die as soon as you can get them.  Becareful though, they have foritude so shaking them won't do.

Those are my thoughts on most of the units in the Grey Knights codex.  If I didn't list them, they don't really matter.  They have some neat toys but they are still just marines. 

If you guys have any subjects you would like me to go more into detail about Grey Knights drop me a line at caldera40k@gmail.com